


Learning Curve

by JacquelineHyde



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Awkward Sex, F/M, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:11:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacquelineHyde/pseuds/JacquelineHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned knows exactly what his wife looks like when she comes: knows the way her blue, blue eyes darken nearly to black just before they squeeze shut; knows the way the muscles in her face flutter as she attempts to keep her composure; knows the curve of her body as she arches from the bed, seeking to press herself closer to him.</p><p>None of this does he know from seeing it for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning Curve

**Author's Note:**

> For the ASOIAF kink meme prompt, _Brandon Stark did not tell his younger brother many tales of Catelyn Tully - she was not a common whore but the woman who would be his bride - but he told enough that Ned knew his wife had experienced orgasm with his brother and not yet with him. And it was killing him._

Ned knows exactly what his wife looks like when she comes: knows the way her blue, blue eyes darken nearly to black just before they squeeze shut; knows the way the muscles in her face flutter as she attempts to keep her composure; knows the curve of her body as she arches from the bed, seeking to press herself closer to him.  
  
None of this does he know from seeing it for himself.  
  
It has been a scant two years since they were wed in the sept in Riverrun, far less time than that since he sent for her to join him in Winterfell, and less time still since the ice that formed instantly between them when he met her with another woman's child in his arms to be raised alongside Robb began to crack and thaw. They have barely begun to explore each other beyond what is strictly necessary to make another babe, and he has yet to find a way to help things along.  
  
No, it is largely his brother's stories, supplemented though they may be with his own restless, feverish imaginings, that have left him with such a vivid picture of her lost to pleasure he could nearly swear he  _has_  seen it for himself.   
  
Brandon spoke often enough of her, and Ned was well aware long before he met her (before he had the slightest notion that she would someday be his wife, before the world spun wildly into madness and dropped him clumsily into Brandon's rightful place) that Catelyn Tully was sweet and clever, with lovely eyes and striking hair.  
  
And if he was not prepared for just  _how_  clever she has proven herself, how easily she can sway him by letting her smiles reach those lovely eyes, even less for just how striking the red of her hair, how fragrant and soft beneath his hands, he considers it more a reflection on her than any failing in Brandon's powers of description.  
  
But while his brother had never been particularly hesitant to speak of the women he had bedded, he told no such tales of the girl who was to be his wife. Ned had taken this to mean that perhaps he intended to leave her alone until he had wed her, and silently congratulated his brother's restraint, only to be swiftly corrected late one evening, with hours of conversation and several cups of wine between them.  
  
Somewhere between his fourth and fifth cup, Brandon had grown sentimental over his beautiful Riverlands girl, but nothing to imply that he had done more than hold her hand and make her blush with pretty words.   
  
As the evening had worn on, the topic of conversation had broadened to encompass all of the  _numerous_  women his brother had taken to bed (or to a deserted corridor, the stables, a secluded bit of forest – the locations, it seemed, became more and more outlandish as the hour grew later, though he had no doubt that all of them were quite true), and Ned had found himself the target of gentle ribbing when it transpired that his own list fell several yards short of what Brandon considered acceptable for a young man, yet unmarried.  
  
Tongue loosened by wine and temper shortened by tale after tale of his brother's prowess, for he had thought to leave this sort of thing in the Vale with Robert for the duration of his visit, Ned had scowled.  
  
 _Is it truly such a poor thing that I do not find it necessary to bed every woman I see? I think it is a far poorer thing to pass your days bedding every woman but the one you will marry._  
  
Far from angered, Brandon had laughed ringingly, and confessed with a wink that Catelyn Tully featured prominently in more than one of his stories. He would not say which of his tales involved the eldest Tully girl, would say only that she flushed a most bewitching shade of pink right down to her breasts when she came, and that the dainty little bite mark just beginning to fade from his shoulder was courtesy of his sweet betrothed.   
  
 _Really, Ned, did you think that I would wait to see my bride naked for the first time until we are in the presence of dozens of men, all watching greedily for every detail? If I am to wed her, surely I deserve to enjoy that sight before any other man._  
  
Ned could scarce disagree on this point, and thinks now morosely of his own wedding night, when he had barely an opportunity for a glimpse of impossibly smooth, pale skin as his men had pulled away her fine gown and shift and the mysterious, intriguing bits of fabric beneath it, before he was swept away in a tide of giggling Riverlands ladies, all tugging eagerly at his own clothing.  
  
He knows from that night that Catelyn came to him a maiden, but it is little comfort, knowing that Brandon had not even needed to bed her to have the sort of response from her that  _he_  has dreamed of, but never seen, not in the fortnight that they shared a bed before he left her to ride to war, not in this year past that he has come to her near weekly.  
  
It is not that he finds their coupling lacking in enjoyment. He likes her smiles of warm welcome when he comes to her, has found an endless source of fascination in watching her undress and even more in the way she looks and feels spread naked beneath him. He cannot help but arch into the gentle paths that her hands trail up and down his back as they move together, and he has come to love that little hum of contentment she makes when he spends inside of her.  
  
It is,  _she_  is, gentle and soothing, and very sweet.  
  
But he wants, badly, to see the girl his brother spoke of, the one who could lose herself in her lover so that she could keep silent only by leaving marks on his shoulder.  
  
Ned can imagine, can easily imagine, cannot  _stop_  imagining, his calm, controlled, dutiful wife this way, and the knowledge that his brother has seen it when he has not fills him with a resentment that he has no right to, not when she knew nearly from childhood that she would one day belong to Brandon.  
  
Yet he wakes in the night from dreams of her to feel it burning in his gut, and wakes the next morning to find shame burning there instead that he could possibly begrudge his dead brother a few stolen moments in the arms of a woman who was meant to be his anyway.  
  
Catelyn seems to enjoy his touch – her soft, breathy moans as he leans over her and brushes light kisses over her breasts until her nipples harden beneath his lips certainly suggest as much, and when he reaches between her legs and curls his fingers inside her, it is never long before she is warm and wet and squirming a little against his hand. But always, she stops him before he can see her to her peak, pulls him up to kiss him as she tightens her legs around his hips, and guides him quickly inside her.   
  
Sometimes he reaches for her again after, pulls her close against his side and seeks out where she is still slick with his seed and her own arousal, but invariably she pulls away with an assurance that he need not bother, that she is quite content.  
  
His teeth grit each time with the desire to argue, to tell her that it will please him to learn what brings her pleasure, but is stopped by the nagging fear that it will not please  _her_ , that it is the last thing she wants from him.  
  
Ned has not his brother's great experience with women, and knows that his attempts must seem like clumsy pawing in comparison with a far more practiced touch. But then, how can she expect him to become more practiced, if not with her?  
  
Perhaps it is more than that; perhaps he has broken his wife's trust so utterly that the idea of his touch without the possibility of a child and the knowledge of her duty is intolerable to her; or perhaps it is that her desire still belongs exclusively to Brandon, and she cannot yet bring herself to let another man affect her so, even her own husband.  
  
The remedy to both of these, he knows (he _hopes_ ) is time, and most of the time, he finds he can be patient.  
  
But most of the time is not  _all_  of the time, and some nights, patience is more difficult than others.  
  
It has been nearly six weeks since he last lay with her, after a brief visit to a bannerman had stretched out to nearly a moon and he had returned to find her  _feeling a little poorly, I am afraid, nothing to worry over, but perhaps if we could wait a few days?_  
  
A few days he has waited, and another week besides, at a loss as to the best way to inquire if she was feeling well enough yet, and by the time Catelyn appears at his door tonight with a shy, hopeful smile, crawls naked into his bed, pulls him down on top of her, he finds that everything existing outside of her arms has become entirely irrelevant at best, and a bloody nuisance at worst.  
  
He ought to be more careful of her, he knows, his thrusts too hard and too deep, his hand at her thigh too tight and like to leave marks, but when he pushes her hair away from her face and searches for signs of discomfort, what he finds instead makes his racing heart stutter.  
  
Far from her customary smile of gentle encouragement, urging him to take his pleasure, she looks like a woman lost to her own, and when he spends with a shaky groan and moves to pull away, her noise of dismay is unmistakable.   
  
Hastily, Ned leans over her again, one hand moving between her legs to rub firm, steady circles over the slick, swollen bud, and she bites her lips against a high, breathy cry.  
  
“It is not necessary, my lord,” she assures him, moving to push him away with visible reluctance.   
  
He thinks he must be scowling as he catches her hand in his free one and pins it to the pillow by her head, for her expression grows uneasy and she tenses beneath him. Loosening his grip, he twines their fingers together and kisses her softly.  
  
“I want to.”   
  
She studies him uncertainly for a long moment, and then nods hesitantly and relaxes into his touch. Kissing her once more as he reaches between them, he parts her with gentle fingers and teases along her opening, watching carefully for her response.  
  
It is only a matter of moments before he finds a scowl tugging at his brow again. For all of her soft sighs and moans, there is nothing in her face of the reaction he saw before, the one he knows from his brother's stories, from his own dreams, and he strongly suspects that they are more for his benefit than any true expression of enjoyment.  
  
Determinedly, he redoubles his efforts, fingers sliding deeper inside her, in search of that response from her again, and gives a bark of surprise when a sharp pain seizes his hand from the awkward angle.  
  
Immediately, she tries to push him away and sit up.  
  
“If you want to stop--”  
  
“No,” he snaps, shoving her to lie back again and moving down her body, planting kisses as he goes. He can feel her eyes on him, hopelessly confused, but pays it no mind, pulls her legs over his shoulders and drops his head to flick his tongue over clit, skimming lightly over her folds before pushing inside.  
  
The taste of his own release gags him, and immediately she stiffens and tries to pull free. He throws an arm across her hips to pin her, licks at her until he can feel the tremble of her thigh against his cheek.  
  
“Ned,  _stop_.”   
  
“I don't want to stop,” he assures her edgily without looking up.   
  
“ _I_  want to stop,” she tells him desperately, trying once more to squirm away, and just as he fully realizes to his shock that she sounds truly upset, her heel connects hard with his side, each just as responsible as the other for knocking the wind from him.   
  
Immediately, he releases her, stomach heavy with guilt as she scrambles away. Hesitantly, he crawls across the width of the bed to where she is curled up, facing away from him, and touches her shoulder gently, wincing when he feels how she is shaking.  
  
“You needn't feel obligated to...do that,” she tells him flatly, and her voice is steady. “It must be very tedious, to worry after the pleasure of a woman you never wanted.”  
  
He huffs a laugh of disbelief. Briskly as she had undressed, he had still been seconds from ripping the clothes the rest of the way from her body in his haste to have her – surely she cannot have failed to notice.  
  
“You doubt that I wanted you tonight?”   
  
“I do not doubt that you wanted to bed a woman tonight,” she retorts, reaching for the furs at the foot of the bed and tugging them up to her chin. It is promising, he thinks, that she has not fled for the safety of her own chambers, even if she will not look at him. “And I am grateful that you decided upon me, as it is rather necessary if I am to give you more children. But I know well enough that had you truly a choice, you might have chosen differently, and I would not add to your obligation by insisting that you--”  
  
“It is no obligation to touch you!” he breaks in, alarmed that this is how she thinks that he views her – and angry too, for he has made his best effort to show her otherwise. But then, he thinks bitterly, it has already been established that he is not his brother, has not his brother's way with beautiful women. It is hardly a surprise that his best effort was not enough to even register with her. With an effort, he gentles his tone. “I only want you to have the same enjoyment in our bed that you have given me.”  
  
She flips over to face him so suddenly that she nearly catches him in the jaw with her shoulder.  
  
“And I do not want you to do it if you do not enjoy it!” she nearly shouts, pushing up from the bed to sit and dragging the blankets with her. “You seemed on the verge of storming out in disgust tonight, and I would rather see to my own needs than have you do something that you find so distasteful!”  
  
Ned freezes, mouth abruptly dry as he finds himself struggling to recall precisely what had led the conversation to this point, what exactly she has just said, aside from the part that his mind is conjuring up in enticing images.  
  
“Would you?” he finally manages, and Catelyn stares at him, perplexed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It is no obligation to touch you,” he hastens to explain, “and it is certainly not  _distasteful_. I was angry only with myself, that I still do not know how you like to be--but perhaps if you were to...show me?”  
  
He can tell the precise moment that she catches his meaning, for she flushes bright pink (he looks forward to discovering if it is the same bewitching shade that he has heard about) and smiles shyly, nervously, even as she lies back with no apparent hesitation and readily allows him to guide her hand between her legs.  
  
It is a struggle to keep his eyes from her face as the stirrings of pleasure overtake it, her breathing uneven, mouth open and trembling, eyes wide and dark. But there will be opportunity enough to watch her like this when it is his hand on her cunt, and he is determined to pay careful attention to exactly what she is doing.  
  
Not, Ned quickly decides, that it is any particular hardship. Her fingers are glistening, arousal darkening and dampening the bright curls dusting her sex, and her hips are grinding up into her own hand. Eagerly, he shuffles down the bed, props himself up on his elbows, and watches in fascination, his face inches from her. He can feel himself growing swiftly hard, and shifts absently, eyes still fixed firmly on her, memorizing every detail, and he is just about to swat her hand away and try it again for himself when she stiffens and muffles a cry with her free hand.  
  
Immediately, he gathers her into his arms, smiling to feel her racing heart against his chest. Catelyn nuzzles closer with a contented sigh, and he determinedly makes no sound as the satin-smooth warmth of her thigh comes into firm contact with his arousal. Curiously, she peeks down, and then up to meet his eyes.  
  
“Do you need me to...”  
  
“Yes,” he replies fervently as she trails off, hands already finding her hips and lifting her to straddle him. “Yes, I need you.”  
  
The smile that breaks over her face is bright and warming, and with a breathless giggle, she braces herself with one hand at his chest, wraps the other tightly around his cock, and sinks down.  
  
The heat of her verges on feverish, he has never felt her so wet before, and she is so lovely atop him that he must close his eyes as he grasps for the control not to spend immediately. Once the sensation has ebbed a little, he takes her hips again and guides her into a slow, gentle motion that soon has her biting the back of her hand to keep quiet.  
  
Frowning, he takes her hand and pulls it away, positioning it just above where they are joined.  
  
“Let me hear you, Catelyn, please.”  
  
He does not know if it is his words that draw that low, throaty little moan from her, or the firm pressure of their fingers together over her clit, but he cannot suppress a growl of satisfaction at the notion that these sounds of hers are for him alone. It seems likely, for surely she did not shout her pleasure for all to hear when Brandon was dishonouring her right under her father's nose.  
  
And when she throws her head back and comes with a loud cry, the darkened blue of her eyes and the curve of her back as she arches against him are both familiar and delightfully new, and he thinks hazily, hands possessive at her waist as she shudders hot and wet around him and drags him bodily over the edge with her, that no other man shall ever see her this way again.  
  
Her face is equal parts dazed and blissful as she falls easily into his arms, and he cannot help but grin.   
  
 _You had little to do with any enjoyment this night has brought her_ , he reminds himself severely. The thought is sobering, and he sighs heavilyy.  
  
“Are you well, my lord?” she asks, pulling away slightly, her brow furrowed in concern. “Shall I leave you to rest?”  
  
In response, he tightens his hold on her, and her sigh sounds something like relief.  
  
A long moment passes, the silence broken only by her soft breathing.  
  
“Most men would not have needed to be shown how to please you,” he says suddenly, not entirely aware that he means to speak until the lazy patterns she is trailing over his chest stop abruptly, and she frowns up at him.  
  
“I think it far more likely that most men would not have bothered,” she shrugs. “I hardly hold it against you, that you do not have an expert's knowledge of a woman's body. Perhaps it has slipped your memory, but I am far from practiced with a man's.” She laughs softly. “I confess, I find the idea of learning together...exciting.”  
  
Ned's smile returns, his arms remaining tight around her in the hope that if he does not let go of her, it will not occur to her to return to her own chambers.   
  
Aye, it is an exciting thought, and just now, he thinks that he would happily spend the rest of his days learning her, learning with her.  
  
Yet as exciting as the learning is, there is much to be said for the knowing, and in the weeks that follow it is a fierce sort of satisfaction each time she gasps, moans,  _wails_  his name as she comes apart beneath his hands and mouth.  
  
And since a stolen moment together in the hot spring earlier this week called for silence far more complete than she has become accustomed to exercising of late, he cannot help a smug smile each time he catches sight of the dainty little bite mark on his shoulder.


End file.
